World's WORST Military Vehicles

Nominations accepted and your points are well taken :!: :)

Just to complete the record, the Elephant would proably have been better off as a tank and not a tank destroyer (OK, it started out as a tank, but didn't make the cut and was revamped as a tank destroyer with a great main gun and armor, but, as you pointed out, no machine gun for close defense).

Also, the Maus was a prototype, not a production vehicle, which was a good thing for the poor wretches who would have had to use it - can you imagine breaking track on something like that :?: If we went off into prototype land we could come up with some real stinkers :wink:

I was lucky enough to be able to tour the 1st Cav Divsion Museum at Fort Hood this past December and they have an M103 on display - what a beast! It made every other armored vehicle there seem tiny - and this included numerous other tanks, trucks, recovery vehicles and SP Howitzers. Haven't been able to see an Elephant in person, but I hear the Ordance Musem at Aberdeen Proving Grounds has one.
 
Are we talking about modern vehicles? Or old ones? I mean, that's a pretty big area, and you can't really compare the technology of the 40's and 50's with today's.

Here's MY votes:

Worst tank (pre-1950) - MAUS (too heavy, too slow, too restriced)
Best tank (pre-1950) - T34/85 (arguably best tank of WWII, easy and cheap to manufacture, a dummy could operate it effectively, reasonably well armored, automotively reliable, very combat effective)

Worst Tank (post-1950) - M60A2 (too far ahead of it's time, dangerous for the crew, too large, used the faulty 155mm Sheleileigh (sp?) missile system)
Best Tank (post-1950) - Tie between T72 and M1A1.

Everyone simmer down a sec. The M1A1 for obvious reasons, but the T72? Sure, here's why: very inexpensive to manufacture, very well armored (for when it was fielded), excellent penetration, small, low profile, fast, dummy-proof, 125mm. The only drawback to the T72 is it's short engagement range and it's autoloader.
 
I was completely removing the crew factor from the equation. The lack of training of a T72 crew goes back to the conscription factor. But in the hands of a capable tank crew, the T72 can be a very effective tank.

Just like putting a Merkava crew in a M1A2 SEP. You wouldn't expect them to be as effective as a highly trained and cohesive American crew.

I was just talking about the weapons system on a purely technological standpoint.
 
I know

yes, i was just playing around....You do know, however, that Israels tank crews are conscripts....
 
Yeah, I know. But the difference is that Israelis fight because they HAVE to. There's really no choice in the matter, conscription or no conscription.

I don't remember who it was that said:

"If the Palestinians dropped all thier arms tomorrow, there would be no more conflict. If the Israelis dropped all thier arms tomorrow, there would be no more Israel."
 
good.

yes thats good but as a responsible "officer of the forum"( :wink: ) i must now say


:offtopic: :offtopic: :offtopic: :offtopic: :offtopic: :offtopic: :offtopic:

I think i made my point.
 
To all,

The point of this forum is to discuss bad production vehicles and bad vehicle ideas - training is NOT under discussion here as that's a subject for another forum. I wanted to mainly focus on WWII forward as the vehicles before that were just too primative.

dragon_master_gunner is right when he states that that covers a lot of territory, but bad ideas stand out.
 
OK, point noted and I don't want to get stuffy, but I do want to home in on the BAD ideas so we can all try and learn something (and have some good discussions :) )
 
Ugly does not begin to describe the thing. Other words you could use are stupid, vulnernable and a waste. Thank goodness it was just a prototype and not a production vehicle.

You know, that T25 just above it would have been a sure looser too. Unless you were short enough to hide behinde the armored side door, I can't see how it would have worked.
 
Another huge problem (and the reason it was scrapped) with the T25 (and the GPA) was that the weight of the armor counteracted the famed Jeep speed an manueverability.
 
F104

OK. I admit, it wasent all bad, but the f104 was referd to as the "widow's plane" and that says it all.Dozens were lost in accidents around the world.
 
Re: F104

sherman105 said:
OK. I admit, it wasent all bad, but the f104 was referd to as the "widow's plane" and that says it all.Dozens were lost in accidents around the world.
Click to expand...

That is what you get when you combine a high performance plane with green pilots...
 
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